


don't make me a liar (when i said it i thought it was true)

by formosus_iniquis



Category: American Vandal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, secondary ship: Sam/Peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24208069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/formosus_iniquis/pseuds/formosus_iniquis
Summary: Jenna is a Hawthorne. A Hawthorne who will be sorted into Slytherin just like every Hawthorne before her. She knows what is expected of her, and she knows what she is supposed to be.So Jenna Hawthorne will be in Slytherin and she will be the Hawthorne that she's supposed to be, no matter what it takes.A Jenna character study.
Relationships: Gabi Granger/Jenna Hawthorne
Kudos: 4





	don't make me a liar (when i said it i thought it was true)

**Author's Note:**

> this is a hogwarts au so that i can project on jenna hawthorne, so its basically not linked at all to hp. it is a product of a lot of hand selected hp lore and av headcanons though so hmu if you wanna talk about those

Jenna Hawthorne is a Slytherin.

She is eleven (and a half) years old and she has been waiting for this moment since she got her letter.

She has taken a car, a train, and a rickety boat so she could climb up these stairs. So she could get sorted.

Jenna Hawthorne will be a Slytherin, just like every Hawthorne has been since Merlin 

She squares her shoulders and sets her chin the way her mother told her Hawthornes stand. The wooden doors in front of her look forbidding. They look like the heaviest doors she's ever seen in her life. She doesn't think she could open them by herself, she wonders if your magic could be weak like your arms and be unable to open those thick wooden doors.

Her shoulders have rolled forward, a nervous habit that her parents hate and her nanny clucks her tongue at. Standing in the middle of the group, when she rolls her shoulders back again she is taller than almost everyone around her. The tallest girl in the group.

Her new classmates are chattering around her, making friends while Jenna just listens.

It is a Slytherin trait to listen.

To gather the information that people don't know they are sharing, with their constantly moving mouths and small talk. There's always something that can be used, Jenna darling. People talk and they talk and they talk, you have to let them. That's what her mother liked to say.

Her mother didn't have a lot of friends. She mostly had women who were afraid of her because they had so much money and women who were afraid of her because she knew so much about them.

Jenna also didn't have a lot of friends.

She hadn't mastered her mother's easy, charming sort of manipulation or her father's glad handing.

But the ghost in her house did teach her how to braid her hair. The Raven Priestess talked to her about her first year at school while teaching her how to pull her hair back into an intricate twist for her sorting. It would show off her face, and the smile she had been practicing in the mirror when the sorting hat announced she was in Slytherin.

Jenna Hawthorne was going to be in Slytherin.

There were two boys standing a few feet in front of her. She kinda wants to say something to them, to reach out and maybe make the first real friendship of her life. They're whispering to each other, the taller of the two standing so close to the other that their hands brushed together. (No one has ever whispered to Jenna like that, conspiratorially.) The shorter one's a muggle born, the hand that isn't brushing against his new friends keeps reaching for his wand, patting his pocket like he's unused to the weight of it and afraid it'll go missing. The taller one has mischief in his face, a half-blood probably since none of the old families had any kids her age, he twirls his wand between his fingers like it's something he's done before.

The heavy doors in front of them open, seemingly on their own and even after a lifetime seeing the magic in the air it's still magical to watch. Jenna looks again at the boys, the shorter one's eyes are wide behind his glasses and she knows she was right --- he didn't grow up around magic --- while the other seems like he can't wait for the sorting to begin.

Jenna knows that this is her last chance to say something, to introduce herself or extend her hand of friendship. But then she gets scared. She hears her mother's voice in her head, the helpful advice she had given Jenna before the train left: "Now remember darling, the relationships you build at school are the most important that you may make in your life." (Jenna had nodded but, like with most conversations with her mother, this was more monologue than conversation.) "The girls in your house are the ones you should worry most about, you will live with them for seven years and the things they learn about you would shock you. Stay away from those Gryffindors, they don't understand the power of patient plays like we do. The Ravenclaws have some wile about them, but you have to watch so you can find the ones who know how to have a good Slytherin time."

(What about Hufflepuffs? Jenna asked when it was clear her mother wasn't going to bring them up at all.)

Her mother sneered the same way she would at a party where the cloth napkins clashed with the table cloth. "Don't worry about those Hufflepuffs, baby, they don't think of loyalty the way we do. It's better to just stick with the girls from your own house, a Ravenclaw if you must, darling. The boys of course are a different story." She smoothed Jenna's hair with a flat hand that did little but tug at her braids.

She didn't and still doesn't know how someone's loyalty could be different. Loyalty is friendship, it's sticking with someone and backing them up. It's trust. That's something Jenna has always dreamed of to have, friends who like and trust her for who she is, her usual interactions are tinged with understanding that she is a Hawthorne and that that is something to be admired and respected. She doesn't know why. Her name is something that gets said to her more than she says. Like it has some kind of meaning besides being a name, like being a Hawthorne means she has something that the other old families don't. Even as young as she is she knows that being one of the old families means that she is somehow different than those with any muggle parents.

The sorting starts while Jenna is thinking, her chance is gone and she still isn't sure what her mother meant when she said boys were a different story. So she waits, and hopes that the pretty blonde girl standing next to her is sorted into the same house she is.

(The tall boy turns out to be Sam Ecklund, he's sorted into Slytherin after little deliberation.)

Jenna gets called up before the other boy and before the pretty blonde girl. She watches Sam talk to an older girl, she's one of the prettiest girls Jenna has ever seen and when her dark hair catches the candlelight Jenna stumbles. Embarrassment burns so needle hot it's almost cold, like hot water on icy skin. Jenna so barely tripped it's probably only noticeable to her, but her mother's voice is there again, an embarrassed sigh at her clumsy daughter, a disappointment that Jenna doesn't even need words for anymore. She pulls her shoulders back and tilts her chin up so she can't see the faces at the tables she's walking past, just the enchanted sky above her and the future in front of her.

Jenna sits down.

A deceptive weight is placed on her crown and suddenly the room all but disappears. It's a comfort, not having to see the waiting expectant faces of future peers. A comfort until a low rumbling voice fills her so completely she isn't sure if it's in her head or speaking around her. "Ah, another Hawthorne. It has been a while."

Jenna is pretty sure this isn't a question, more an observation, but she can't help but think that she is the only child of only children, her father was the last Hawthorne to come through school and her mother the last James. "Yes," the hat continued, "the last of two long lines of old magic. You understand the power of a name, don't you young Hawthorne."

Jenna wasn't sure what it meant. But even as she tried to think that she knew it wasn't true. She had seen her mother throw around their name like a sword. Seen her father use the power of a centuries long bloodline to win arguments like name alone meant something. She wasn't sure why the Hawthorne name was so important, just that it was old. And with age came money and a  _ tone _ . Jenna wasn't just a Hawthorne she was a  _ Hawthorne _ .

"Yes, you do understand, don't you. Even if you haven't realized it yet. But there's a loyalty to you, instinctive. You have faith, trust. Hufflepuff could serve you well, child."

"No." It's a whisper. It's a shout. Jenna isn't sure if it was even said out loud. But she knows one thing with a crushing certainty, Hufflepuff is not an option.

Jenna Hawthorne is supposed to be in Slytherin.

"Yes, I have sorted every Hawthorne and nearly every James I have seen into Slytherin. Two proud old lines,  _ too _ proud old lines. You understand power, young Hawthorne, but power does not just come from one house."

"I have to be in Slytherin."

"Have to be, do you? You would have true friends with the Badgers, young one. Those who understand what true trust and loyalty mean."

"Their loyalty means something different," Jenna quoted.

There was a rumbling pause that Jenna could feel shake through her entire core. "Hmm, yes, you can quote it, but do you know what that means?"

"Yes." She thought she did.

"There is loyalty based on a name, and loyalty based on a knowing. You can have both, child, you can have one, or you can have neither; but you must be careful, you must be observant to make sure you don't mistake one for both, or none for either."

"I am a Slytherin."

"Are you certain?"

"I  _ am _ a Slytherin."

"You could be quite happy-"

"I am a  _ Hawthorne _ ."

"Yes, yes you are."

Jenna doesn't know how much of this conversation has been happening aloud, but there is a difference between the all consuming, all surrounding rumble she had been listening to and the next shout. "Slytherin!" Projected, booming, final.

Jenna Hawthorne was less than a minute from being a hat stall.

Jenna Hawthorne is in Slytherin.

(The shorter boy, Peter, made softer without Sam somehow, is quickly sorted into Hufflepuff. The pretty blonde, Chloe, a Gryffindor.)

Jenna Hawthorne  _ is _ a Slytherin.

She is twelve the first time she hears her name used as an excuse.

(Her potion wasn't good, she knows it wasn't. She was too distracted by the way the heat from all the cauldrons made Emily's cheeks flush and her hair start to frizz. Jenna didn't know why that was so much more captivating than whatever the instructions were to this potion she was supposed to be making. She still hears her potions instructor's excuses made for her. "She is a Hawthorne." She passes in class that day.)

She is thirteen when she figures out what her mother meant by loyalty.

(She gets caught in a half-truth. A not quite lie born of an intended truth that coupled with a memory she didn't remember as well as she thought she did. Either way she gets caught. Those fragile friendships she thought she had been building tarnish like Slytherin silver. Jenna is not an outcast, she has too much notoriety for that, but she can hear the laughs when her back is turned. Questions are asked and she knows her answers are never good enough, never right. Those people she had hoped she would have to confide in and laugh with have left her with nothing. Their loyalty lasted as long as Jenna's popularity did. Now they are there in name but not in spirit.)

(she watches those boys from afar. like  _ that _ is enough to prove that she isn't missing out on anything. she shares a house with sam and even without an eye on him she hears what he gets up to. not quite a terror, he has a strange habit of being on the outskirts of all of the school drama. peter is beside him every time --- or is it sam that is beside peter?)

She is fourteen when she picks up the shield of her name for herself.

(Her nose has found a more permanent place in the air. It's easier to lie to herself and everyone around her if she can't see their faces anywhere but her periphery. If it makes her look snide. If it makes her look like she thinks she is better than them, then at least it gives her lie a little more weight. It surprises her at first, when she can throw around the Hawthorne name like it means something. "Obviously  _ I _ can, I'm a Hawthorne." It surprises her more when people let her get away with it. The feeling settles like so much ooze in the pit of her stomach and the pit of her soul every time she can say her name like being born a Hawthorne should get her some special treatment.)

Somewhere in between, she figures out what her mother meant by boys being different and she learns that it isn't the case for her.

(One more secret. One more thing to be used against her.)

(Gabi Granger is the girl that made her stumble in the Great Hall and Jenna thinks she must have Veela blood. She is captivating, enchanting, distracting. She never looks at Jenna twice, but the first time is always with a smile. She was made to be a Slytherin, her cunning and wile, but the common room suits her too. She looks soft in the warm sweaters she wears and the green tinged light that filters in through the lake makes her look like one of those mermaids that the muggles have dreamed up as she sits beside the windows working, reading, signing to the mermaids in the lake. Otherworldly)

(Jenna lets the girls in her room talk about boys, but after her first night --- eleven and a half, she still doesn't know well enough to lie --- she keeps the fact that there aren't any boys here that interest her to herself. By thirteen she is hiding Sappho and muggle pulp novels in among her school books, she knows what she is --- and she's learning the price of salt --- and she knows that information like that is the kind used against you even if she doesn't understand why. It's a reveal and like all the best ones it's to be measured out careful and disclosed at the right time.)

She is fifteen and she's in love.

Jenna makes a show of her coming out, in that she doesn't let the information have any weight at all. She is Jenna Hawthorne after all and she makes her transition through the heteronormative with the grace that is expected of her. She is straight and then she isn't. She doesn't give anyone the chance to question that.

(she doesn't even want the coming out. she isn't jealous of those two boys that she never talked to in her first year. she hasn't spent the last five years of school watching the way sam ecklund has become a slytherin or the way peter maldonado accepted being a hufflepuff. the way they have maintained their friendship, despite their house differences or the fact that the hufflepuff loyalty is different.)

(she doesn't want what they got. a fast building friendship that becomes a slow budding romance. she has enough. she doesn't need understanding. she doesn't need a coming out. she doesn't want someone to look at her with a twinkle of mischief in their eyes as they grab her hand and encourage her to do something stupid. she doesn't want to have to decide what kind of loyalty she has, if she will lie because an alliance would serve her or if she would go down along with the ship because that is what it means to stick by someone.)

She wasn't sure if she had an idea what love was. She had seen infatuation. She had seen love from afar. But then she meets Brooke, and Jenna falls fast.

Brooke Wheeler  _ was _ a Ravenclaw.

She is seventeen (and a half) and had just finished her seventh year.

Jenna wasn't sure how she hadn't noticed Brooke before. She chalks it up to the power of a closeted existence and the general fear that she would somehow sully the Hawthorne name if she hung out with the wrong kind of Ravenclaw, despite her mother's warnings.

But Brooke isn't the wrong kind of Ravenclaw. Brooke isn't the wrong kind of anything. Brooke is beautiful, beguiling, bewitching. She makes Jenna's head feel fuzzy whenever she's around --- which is never as often as Jenna would like or for as long as she wished --- and she wears the same perfume that Gabi Granger does.

They only get to see each other on weekends, Hogsmeade has never been so appealing as it has been since Jenna met Brooke.

"I could just sneak out to see you."

"I don't want you to get in trouble," Brooke's hair had a strange way of catching the light, like it was never entirely sure what color it was meant to be, "then we'd be in quite the pickle." She had a Slytherin grin, that's how Jenna knew she was the right kind of Ravenclaw --- one that her mother would approve of --- one Jenna had found her own facsimile of but had seen in the girls dorms thousands of times. "That should be your nickname, you're my little pickle."

Never more thankful for the antiquated candlelight than she was now. It would reveal too much, how she knew too little, if Brooke could see her blush at the silly pet name.

"I'm a Hawthorne. I wouldn't get in trouble for sneaking out of the dorms, and anyway like I would even get caught," Jenna sniffed. She didn't know why, but something about the sound made her feel haughty, it was the kind of sound that rich, important people were supposed to make.

"What does that even mean? Honestly, Pickle, how are you any different from any of the rest of us?"

Jenna didn't know if the words were supposed to sting, but they did.

But with love came honesty?

"Go back to school, Pickle. I'll be here next weekend. We'll write to each other, it'll be just like the olden days. We could tell each other our deepest secrets, safe by our distance."

It sounds romantic when Brooke says it.

Jenna can practically see it if she's honest. Writing letters by candlelight, telling the person she loves --- is falling for, thinks she cares very deeply about --- all of the things she has held to herself for so long, knowing that every time she does they're falling even more in love.

A cell phone would be more convenient.

"There's no romance in texting, Pickle, don't be so silly." And of course it sounds silly now that it's been pointed out. Convenience is not the same as romance. "You have to write to me so I know that you really care."

It seals the deal.

They don't kiss. They haven't ever kissed. Jenna is always too nervous to bring that up. She's nervous around Brooke a lot, afraid that she might say the wrong thing, never certain about their footing; Brooke always makes her feel silly for thinking that --- it's comforting except when it isn't.

Jenna wants to ask why their dates always feel like they end so fast.

(Clingy, she chides herself. Hawthornes aren't clingy, they are the people that are clung to. Accept what you are allowed and make them think it is exactly what you wanted.)

Jenna turns once, to say goodbye one last time. Filled with a Gryffindor courage and ready to ask if they could extend their date for one more drink, "Let's make it lunch and dinner, the gates don't close until eight." She has her tone picked out, blasé, like it doesn't mean a thing to her but that Brooke would be ridiculous not to say yes. She wonders if it's a trick of the candlelight as she does, that makes Brooke look angry that she turned. Like Jenna is Orpheus and her impetuous impatience has somehow doomed them.

But it has to be the candlelight, that makes Brooke's smile look so fake as she waves at Jenna. That makes her nose look like it's changing before Jenna's eyes. It has to be the thing making Brooke's eyes look so hard, their color changing.

She says goodbye again, and leaves; not with her tail between her legs but with her shoulders back like her mother taught her and her chin tilted up to the air.

The letters will be enough.

As silly as she was worried she would feel, pouring her thoughts and insecurities down on paper for Brooke to see. To judge. The words come easy, even if Jenna knows it's just an introduction now. She is still shielding herself. She trusts Brooke more than she has ever trusted anyone, but she is still not sure how much that is.

But blank paper is easy to talk to, even if the header catches her eye every few words to remind Jenna that it will be read eventually.

So she keeps her honesty unrevealing. She tells the truth, but not the whole truth. But so help her, god, it feels good to tell someone. To tell  _ Brooke _ that she feels like she is cheating her way through school on her name alone. Her last essay was garbage and three inches short of what it was supposed to be and she knows her grade was better than Madison's --- which should be impossible when Madison is the other kind of Ravenclaw and makes sure everyone knows how much she cares about the implications of history on today's magic.

Jenna sends her owl once. 

She wants Brooke to know that she really does want this, that she's ready to let herself be more open. Artemis wings her way back into the Slytherin common area with an angry red slash down her side that Jenna is too panicked to even look at.

"Hey!" Gabi Granger is standing in front of her now, Artemis' blood has stained the sleeves of Jenna's white button down shirt and there's no way it will ever come out. "Jenna, look at me."

Jenna is looking, of course she is looking. It's Gabi Granger, in front of her, touching her, grounding her. Artemis is cooing, in pain, in Jenna's arms.

Is Jenna crying? She isn't sure. Artemis has been the one constant she has had, since her parents decided that she was responsible enough to have a pet of her own. The owl only ever delivers letters home to her parents, or she is sending gossipy notes to others, out of a misplaced sense of duty that it's something Jenna should be doing. Of course she would be injured the first time Jenna sent her out into the unfamiliar world.

Hawthornes do not cry. Jenna sniffles anyway.

"That doesn't look great," Gabi says, "can I see her?"

Jenna must nod, her arms move at least. Not enough to disturb Artemis, but enough that Gabi Granger can see her.

An angry looking black owl wings its way into the common room. Artemis flinches and puffs her feathers up. Gabi shushes someone, Artemis or Jenna it's hard to tell.

Gabi's magic has an energy that Jenna can taste at the back of her tongue. Powerful but sweet. Sweet the way honey is sweet, with the aftertaste of the work that it took for this to exist. Artemis' wounds close with a few whispered words and as they heal Jenna's panic starts to ebb.

"There," Gabi said, satisfied. Her head girl badge catches the light, and Jenna forces her eyes up and away from Gabi's chest. "It's okay, she should be fine now." There was a soothing authority in her voice that lets Jenna relax, even Artemis is looking up at Gabi.

"Thank you."

"Don't worry about it, I would be just as freaked if something like that happened to Di. Don't know where you sent her, but I would send a school owl next time."

Jenna nods, not sure if she can trust her voice. Gabi smiles, but Jenna knows what it feels like to be observed, "I would keep her in my room for the night," Gabi says, "if I were you, just to keep an eye on her. Just a little peace of mind."

Then Gabi leaves. Jenna wants to ask her a thousand questions, Jenna wants to talk to her about anything. Gabi is the head girl of the house but Jenna thinks this might be the first conversation they've ever really had. She wants it to happen again.

Jenna has a girlfriend.

Jenna's loyalty should be stronger than that. She is a Slytherin.

Artemis takes Gabi's instructions as Jenna's and wings her way up the hall to Jenna's room. She'll nest in the pillow that Jenna uses and Jenna will have to transfigure something for herself for the night, but she'll be a quiet house guest.

That black owl is perched on the table still and watches Jenna with a menacing frown. It croaks out a warning before it flies closer to her. The warning doesn't make it better.

She holds back a shriek on principle more than actual restraint, but can't stop the flinch as this angry bird lands behind her, extending its leg.

It's from Brooke. A simple note, no confession.

_ Don't send your owl. Everyone knows the birds from the Hawthorne flock, I don't think we want any rumors flying around do we, Pickle? Send your letters with one of the school birds or with mine. -Brooke _

She should have thought of this, obviously Brooke wouldn't want her entire life thrown into the Hawthorne fire.  _ Obviously _ , she couldn't believe she was so stupid. There was no telling who might have seen Artemis flying to Brooke's.

She hopes she didn't ruin everything.

Brooke's owl flies away without waiting for a response, taking flight on dark wings with a scowling face.

The common room is as quiet as it ever gets on a Saturday night. Jenna is alone the way that she's always alone, the girls that she lets hang on to her name --- the same ones she uses for what little company she can get in this place --- are out enjoying their weekend. She can still hear Gabi Granger's voice, the smile in it, in the corner she so often claims as her own.

Jenna does her best not to stare as she walks by, but the alluring thing about Gabi is how natural she is. The spot she claims is tucked out of the way but still close enough to the hallway that leads down to the girl's bedrooms that the gossip can be heard floating down it at all hours.

It's the kind of spot that if Jenna sat there at night it would seem obvious that she was just there to collect the secrets of the people around her. It just seems like the kind of spot that Gabi would sit in. Present but not too present, there if she's needed to intercede but not too obvious so that some mischief couldn’t still play out.

She smiles when Jenna walks by, breaking away from her conversation with Sam. Jenna tries to smile back, but she's certain it doesn't meet her eyes. They cut to Sam and see that he's already watching her, calculating.

She goes to bed.

Jenna keeps sending letters. That angry black owl keeps coming to collect them, the more she sees him the more wrong it feels that this is the owl that Brooke has. She doesn't mention it, it seems rude.

So she writes.

_ I never expected that I could have a relationship like this one. You're the first person I've ever met who has treated me like a real person. As a someone rather than just the result of my name. I didn't know that I could have something like that. _

Gabi is watching her more. 

_ I'm not sure if anyone but you has ever really understood me. I feel people's eyes on me constantly, but it always feels like they're just watching me and waiting for me to screw up. Like if they always have their eyes on me then they always have a show. I'm pretty sure if I'm anything less than perfect that the smiles they give me are going to turn into laughs and sneers. Even the ones who act like they like me. _

Sam Ecklund has started talking to her.

Am I being paranoid? I expect the worst in people and I don't trust the sudden charity I feel like I'm receiving. I feel like everyone is just using me for my name. Sometimes I think you're the only person I really have who isn't looking for anything from me.

"What was your sorting like?"

Sam Ecklund, it turns out, is persistent in an annoyingly Slytherin way. He has started sitting across from her when she's alone.

(She's alone a lot more often than she used to be. Brooke has made her care a lot more that those girls she used to talk to were less friends and more like accessories. That anxiety that kept her up at night, confirmed.)

He also has the annoying Slytherin talent of asking questions that Jenna doesn't want to answer.

And he comes with a sidekick. Though Peter fades into the background with much more talent than Sam does.

If Gabi has been watching her then Sam is investing.

She doesn't trust either of them. But even though she's barred a lot of herself to Brooke now, she hasn't mentioned the two housemates who have taken a sudden interest in her.

"It was like everyone else's," Jenna answered, disinterested.

_ I feel like every interaction I have with people takes place behind masks. It's like I'm acting out a facsimile of my own life. Observing and then picking out the right Jenna for every situation. I'm never me, I'm just the person that someone wants to see at any given moment. _

"That's why I'm asking." Sam said, "It’s kind of black and white, isn't it?"

"Isn't it?"

_ I'm afraid to admit that I don't know something. Like it's a moral failing that I'm Jenna Hawthorne but I feel so clueless about so much. It's not like the Hawthorne name means I'm supposed to be all knowing, but I grew up with this shouldn't I know it? _

"Peter agrees with me." Sam confided.

"I haven't heard anything I'm supposed to agree with."

Against her better judgement, she kinda likes them. That's the scary part. She always thought she would; and after years of watching their friendship, watching their pranks and hearing secondhand about their arguments, it's being confirmed.

"It's crazy that they take a bunch of kids and decide who they are, right? Like at eleven, they're capable of deciding what our core personality traits are?" Peter said.

"It  _ is _ magic."

_ I'm pretty sure my magic isn’t even that powerful. I've been hiding behind the fact that I'm from an old family but I don’t think I really understand magic. I'm not sure my magic is even any good. _

"We think," Sam has a talent for making things conspiratorial. When he talks to you it makes you feel like you're in on a secret. "We think that it's a choice."

"A choice?" This conversation is Jenna's worst nightmare.

"Yeah and how you react is your decision."

"And your reaction at eleven would be the same now?"

"It's a working theory," Peter admitted.

"So you were almost sorted somewhere else?" Jenna asks, her leading questions haven't improved since she was a child.

"Ravenclaw," Sam answers, "Petey was almost a Gryffindor." Pride lights Sam up from the inside out.

"Not that it matters."

"You would have been amazing wherever you were sorted." There's a naked affection when they talk to each other that makes Jenna feel like she's being made a part of something she shouldn't be.

"I'm fine where I'm at."

"A terrifying Slytherin, if you weren't such a Peter."

Voyeuristic.

Their lives and affection for each other are twined so deeply. They're it for each other, and being hit by that realization feels strange. To see two people and know that they are it for each other.

"So what was your sorting like?" Sam asks again.

Peter was sorted in less than a minute. Not unusual for a muggle born, he entered without any preconceptions of the houses. Sam grew up with magic, but even he only took just over that sixty second mark. 

She remembers theirs.

They must remember hers.

Those seconds had passed by so quickly when she was under the hat, its magic making its decision seem so much quicker than the four minutes that had creeped by in its lengthy pauses and calculating silence.

"Normal," she said. "I have to get my books for class."

_ I've never talked to anyone like you. I feel like I could trust you with anything. I've been thinking about this a lot, belonging and trust. I don't think I fit in here. I've never told anyone this, but I don't think I'm supposed to be in my house. I think it's just one more thing I've bullied my way into by using my name like it meant something. _

Jenna agonized over that conversation with Sam and Peter for days before she scribbled off her confession to Brooke. It was comforting. It was terrifying. She rushes to the owlry in the ugly hours of the morning to send it off, a timid brown owl soars away with it disappearing behind the tower and headed toward Hogsmeade. Her letters from Brooke almost always come under the cover of night, they float into her window misted with the dew that has already started to settle on the grass. It's romantic, having a secret and reading those precious few lines that Brooke will send her under her blankets at night.

Brooke's response to this letter is shockingly public. Her scarred, black winged owl soars through the Great Hall and drops a letter on her table. 

Jenna feels like everyone is looking at her.

So many eyes that none of them mean anything. Jenna tosses her hair back. It doesn't have the same effect cut short the way it is, but it flutters around her shoulders like she's doing something deliberate. She opens the letter. She has to open the letter. The mental gymnastics is exhausting. To not open would be admitting to hiding something, and people always talk when they think a Hawthorne is hiding something. Opening it will open the floor to questions. Jenna isn't a very talented liar.

But a decision has to be made before it looks like stalling.

Three words.

_ Which house, Pickle? _

"Hey Jenna?" It's Sam. He's making too big a show of not looking at the parchment in her hands to not be wondering exactly what she's doing.

"What?" She borrows her tone from her mother, it's the same 'what?' she uses when the staff at Hawthorne Manor have come up at the wrong time.

"Do you have your potions book with you? I totally forgot we had that essay due today."

She pulls it from her bag, and he takes it with a smile. That's it. Sam sits beside her, but doesn't ask any questions other than, "Is that actually how you spell that? Fuck, Peter is going to be the worst about this for days, I hate it when he's right." No questions about the note, he doesn't even mention it as she slips it into her bag, even though he's obviously watching.

And because Sam is sitting beside her, Gabi joins them when she comes down to breakfast.

"Samuel, you're up early."

"Gabrielle, you're not."

"Well this takes time," she gestures to a flawless face and perfect hair, Jenna swallows around a dry mouth and remembers her own girlfriend. "Unlike you, who, what? Forgot about curfew again and fell asleep in the Hufflepuff dorms?"

"A real gentleman doesn't kiss and tell, Gabrielle. But if you must know, I came down here in search of a textbook that isn't covered in drawings of dicks and the quiet company of Jenna." He turns to Jenna now, drawing her into a conversation she had been happy to watch from afar. "That's not short for anything is it, cause we kinda got a thing going here."

Gabi's eyes twinkled with something, mirth or mischief it was hard to tell, "Don't ask her that, she's from one of the old families. It could be horrible." For once the use, or the implication, of her name doesn't feel like someone taking up a sword against her. When Gabi tosses it out, it's like a given. A nudge. A shared joke they can both take part of.

"Jenavera?" Sam guesses.

"Eugenia," Gabi says.

It’s been so long since she was part of the joke it leaves her stomach twisting with something anxious. She cuts it off. "Just Jenna." 

"Well I hope Just Jenna is a miracle worker," Gabi says, Jenna blushes hot when Gabi winks at her, "'cause I heard that Professor Maeda is actually legit grading that and looks like you're still five inches short."

"Why the fuck are these papers measured in inches and not pages, it makes no sense we have pages."

" _ That's _ the part of magic that doesn't make sense," Jenna says, forgetting for a second that she isn't really a part of this. That she was just being included because she was in proximity.

"Oo, my girl's got a point," Gabi says, Jenna is glad that she forgot her place. "We need to hang out more."

"Stop hitting on my friends, Gabrielle, were you raised by wolves? Jenna is helping me make it to sixth year. Go be the worst somewhere else."

"If I was, you were raised right next door to the den, kiddo." She pauses and winks at Jenna again, a 'watch this' sort of gesture that Jenna hates how much she delights in. "Maybe I'll go find Peter and see if he needs help with his transfigurations, the poor kid gets so embarrassed, and it looks like you missed a spot when you were rushing out of the Badger den this morning." Jenna watches Sam hold his head up high even as Gabi's wand comes out to catch him on the chin, her magic spills into the air as the bruising on Sam's neck evens out. A counter to the way the blush stains his cheeks.

"Bye, Gabrielle." It's pointed, but Jenna can feel the affection there.

"Bye, Samuel. Bye, Eugenia." Jenna startles at being included in the joke. Is she really being included or is it just a recognition that she's there.

"Some days she makes me wish I went with Ravenclaw, I swear to fuck."

"You would switch houses?" Jenna asks the question before she can think of all of the many many reasons that she shouldn't. She's showing her hand, pointing to the gaping hole in her armor that a sword could so easily slip through.

"I mean maybe, it's just a place where we live. I know it's supposed to be like a thing, like people who think like us so we can make friends easier, but the whole system is kinda dated and sometimes shitty."

She picks at her breakfast while she considers what he said. Would it have mattered if she had been sorted into Hufflepuff? Her stomach twists and revolts with the instinct to say yes. To be the first Hawthorne in over a century to be sorted somewhere else? Her father has called Hufflepuffs soft, when he goes through the society pages he tuts and scoffs. Don't be like this, dear heart, he had said pointing at engagement announcements and professional reveals. A soft faced woman with big doe eyes is smiling beside an announcement of some board position. A real leader, dear, he had said, is someone who has the strength to know when loyalties must be put to the test. They just don't understand that. That's why you need a Slytherin, to do that sort of work.

Could she be honest about her sorting? Her parents love her, would they care that she could have been one of those Hufflepuffs they talk about.

"You don't think the house systems exist for a reason?"

Does she even have friends she could tell?

"It's a starting place," Sam says, "but I don't think it means something special to be a Slytherin."

What is Brooke going to think? A Ravenclaw, would she care that Jenna could have been a Hufflepuff? Would she see that Jenna is still the same person aside from all that? What do the two houses have in common? They both value loyalty, they put trust in their alliances. Brooke knows her better than anyone else at this point, she out of anyone would have to know that Jenna is Jenna. Whether she is more Slytherin or Hufflepuff or both or neither.

It's a nice thought. Maybe if Jenna was more sure of who Jenna actually was outside of her name.

"You could say the same for every house."

"Now you see what we're saying." Sam agrees, "if a house were it's stereotypes then all the stoners I know would be in Hufflepuff instead of Gryffindor."

"We would do a lot more plotting."

"Bad example," Sam said, "I do plenty of plotting, most of it is just how I'm going to get away with not doing homework."

_ I haven't told anyone this. Not my parents, not the people I think could be my friends. But even though it's only been a few months, I feel like I can trust you with this. I feel like I trust you more than anyone. I was almost sorted into Hufflepuff. Some days I think it might have even been the better choice, but I'm too afraid of what that would mean for me. A Hawthorne who's a Hufflepuff. It's hard to even think about. _

Drew Pankratz gets a Howler the day after the announcement of a school wide tournament of skill. The banners fly up as an unidentifiable voice fills the room with a repeating shout of, "I warned you. I warned you." It's haunting. But it's the banners, they flutter down with a grace that makes the image they carry all the more degrading.

That black winged owl soars in amid the chaos and drops a letter in front of Jenna with a plop. It's gone again as the banners settle, Jenna can see it disappear out one of the large open windows at the ceiling revealed again only as Gabi casts a particularly nasty cutting spell that sends all four house banners fluttering to the floor. She opens up her letter while Sam's eyes are too busy darting around the room trying to catch something, Peter's eyes if she were guessing, his neck cranes and his expression is unreadable.

_ You're going to do what I ask, when I ask it. Or the whole world is going to find out that the perfect Hawthorne heir is actually nothing but a sad little Hufflepuff putting on airs. _

Jenna hears her heart break over the sound of the entire school preparing to ruin Drew's life. The one person that she has trusted with everything, has reminded her exactly why she never did that. The betrayal doesn't sting as much as the knowledge that she should have known better.

* * *

"What witch, Andromeda, addled your wits?" Gabi's voice floats through the library to find a landing spot in Jenna's ear and with her guilt. Warring emotions send a shiver down her spine as she appears like magic out of the stacks and at Jenna's side. "I love her poetry, but that's like the only line I can ever remember for some reason."

"Witch."

She hums, vocalizing a smile, "Yeah, probably."

Jenna hasn't been hiding, but she has made a strategic retreat from the center of attention. OWLs are coming up, it makes sense that she would be in a quiet corner of the library trying to study. Drew had pretty much made his home on the other side. Jenna kept her distance, as much as she pitied him that kind of social stigma had a way of catching; the ice she was stood on was already thin enough.

Gabi didn't seem to care.

"How's Artemis?"

"Did I miss the part where we were friends?"

Jenna can smell the perfume that Gabi wears and wonders if it was coincidence that Brooke wore the same one, that her letters always came in on a breeze of that same scent.

"Good deflection. You did, we're best friends now. That's why I'm asking about your injured owl now, the way friends do." It's the smile that does it. If anyone else had spoken to her like this, Jenna probably wouldn't have done much of anything but she would have made it  _ look _ like she was going to. But Gabi has a smile, it brings her in and suddenly she's part of the joke that Gabi is telling.

"She's fine. You did a good job."

"That hard won praise is always the sweetest, thanks Hawthorne."

"Is that all?"

"You aren't going to make this one easy, are you?"

Jenna fakes her way through most of her classes less out of a real need to and more because it's the sort of thing young, rich people do. They coast. It doesn't stop her from connecting the obvious dots. Gabi seems to know something. Gabi seems to be leading Jenna to something. All of Jenna's letters smelled like the perfume that Gabi wears.

A + B = Gabi might just be the one blackmailing her.

"I don't know-"

"Is everything okay?"

"Why wouldn't it be? Jenna deflects.

"Honestly?"

"Either that or you lie very convincingly."

"Haven't seen you around much, Sam noticed you kinda disappeared after you got a letter and well, Sam means well but he kinda goes in hard. I figured it might be less traumatizing if I went in instead."

"So this is a favor."

"A favor is driving your fifteen year old friends to the mall when you're the only one with a licence. I like you Jenna, this is me checking up on you, not as Head Girl but as a friend who misses seeing you at the dinner table. Sam also misses you, but he's bad at emotional vulnerability so I wouldn't let him come."

Jenna isn't sure that she can believe that.

"I appreciate it, but I'm just trying to study."

She doesn't have a lot of experience in healthy friendships. When she tries to open up she does it wrong, alienating herself from the people that she wants to like her. When she tries to trust she trusts the wrong person, earning a blackmail letter and the threat of worse. When someone tries to connect with her she pushes them away, ensuring that she won't make friends but she also won't get hurt again.

She'll handle this herself.

_ Why are you doing this? I don't understand _ .

She doesn't get an answer.

She wasn't sure she even expected one.

* * *

There are champions selected from each of the four houses for the tournament. Anyone in fifth year or older could enter, but when the Gryffindor champion is chosen she almost wonders if anyone else in the house even entered. DeMarcus Tillman, Gryffindor golden child, seems like the obvious winner from the second his name bursts from the goblet. Ravenclaw has Kevin McClain, Hufflepuff breaks the trend and a seventh year Jenna doesn't know is called, a pretty girl with the kind of smile Jenna recognizes as having a fake confidence even as she waves to the Great Hall like it was obvious that she would be the one selected for this role. (Sam clearly knows her, he's watching her carefully and Jenna is almost surprised by the suspicion in his eyes she thinks it's because Sam always seems so magnanimous.)

Jenna gets called for Slytherin house.

Jenna didn't even enter her name.

Her name bursts from the goblet and as it does a note appears in front of her, appearing from nowhere like magic.

_ Join the tournament or everyone will know that Jenna Hawthorne is just another loser, lying her way through life. _

She accepts her gift from Brooke with the grace of a child accepting a book at Christmas; standing like Christa and the other champions had, waving at the Great Hall like it was only obvious that she would be chosen to compete, and hoping that her smile didn't look as brittle as it felt, like the first visible crack in the porcelain mask she always wore.

The final surprise comes when the new Arithmancy professor is chosen to judge. The obvious assumption that the tournament judge would be the headmaster, or selected by them rather than the goblet, was apparently one Professor Gesualdi also held. He smiles but Jenna doesn't miss the way his eyes dart around the Great Hall like he's looking for someone to tell him that this is all a joke.

The Goblet doesn't supply any more names. The champions have been chosen and the Goblet and Brooke's decisions are final. Another line is revealed on Jenna's note.

_ I'm glad you didn't decide to do anything stupid, Hawthorne. When I need you I'll let you know, you will listen. _

No one remembers what the first challenge for the champions is. Jenna was one of them, had prepared for whatever it was and even she didn't remember. People do remember half the school shitting themselves. Those that were affected seemed to be random, but even half the school was a lot of people. It was devastating and professors swore that they would get to the bottom of just who was doing this.

Then there was the dung bomb in the Divination tower. The irony that someone should have seen that coming was lost in the smell that forced the whole tower to be closed.

Brooke was doing this. Jenna wasn't sure why she was so sure, but she knew it had to be Brooke. It made her dread even more just what Brooke was going to have  _ her _ do if she was willing to do all of this.

_ Why are you doing this? Not just to me, why are you doing any of this? _

Gabi Granger is still watching her. Sam, and Peter when he's around, is still trying to be her friend. The tournament goes on. Jenna gets word that the next challenge is going to be in the air, a four person race to find a snitch charmed to glow in house colors. It's sure to be one that DeMarcus is going to win as Captain of the Gryffindor team.

"Is this something I can help with?" Gabi's voice carries on the wind and almost startles Jenna off of her broom.

She hates flying. Hates heights. She's got her broom clenched between her knees tight enough that she knows there will be bruises on them when she wakes up in the morning. She's only floating far enough above the ground that her feet aren't touching anymore, there are first years more adventurous.

"Or is this something else that you can handle on your own?" Gabi continues.

"That isn't what I said," Jenna spits out, each word grits between her clenched teeth like sand. She feels her broom wobble beneath her, the movement from her lungs as she speaks enough to disrupt the very careful balance she's found.

"No, you're right, it was just the vibe you were giving me." Gabi takes to the air like it's a natural progression. Her transition to her broom graceful as a bird taking flight, it's fluid enough that the steps between go unnoticed. She was on the ground and then she was floating beside Jenna, hovering next to her like they were sharing a bench.

"And what vibe am I giving you now?"

"Frightened first year who's only used a broom for chores." Gabi is doing short laps around her, it should feel like showing off but it's making Jenna dizzy more than anything as she tries to keep Gabi in her line of sight.

"Hilarious."

"You're too tense," Gabi coaches. Jenna feels a warm hand press flat between her shoulder blades and she feels the opposite of whatever effect Gabi was probably going for. Every muscle in her body clenches tight, she can feel the wood grain of her broom making indentations on the bone of her knees.

The hand pulls away.

"No touching, got it, should have asked first."

"You're fine." Jenna Hawthorne is now a soprano.

Gabi does another lap, floating higher with each corkscrew. "Is it a height thing?"

"I'm not afraid of heights."

"No? I am, the higher you go the farther you can fall. Quidditch injuries can be gruesome, it's like, we have magic can we not make the ground softer or something?"

"You're not supposed to fall," Jenna points out. The front of her broom bucks up, and she relaxes an arm so she can push it back down. They're eye level again when she adds, "It's like the whole point."

"It is like the whole point, you got me there." She makes a slow bank left, "There is something exhilarating about diving back down too, like jumping off the high dive of a pool. That 'am I going to die this time' feeling in the pit of your stomach."

Jenna follows her with her shoulders, the breeze picks up around her, "I've never wondered if I was going to die jumping into a pool."

"You've never gone swimming with Sam, he's got a younger sister and the whole family has no sense of boundaries when it comes to a prank war. There was a week one summer where I was pink."

The sun is setting and, even as the temperature drops steeply as they float, it casts Gabi in an orangey-pink light that makes Jenna think she probably pulled the color off.

"Is it having something between your knees?"

"What!" Jenna's heels click together as she jolts in surprise, Gabi moves closer.

"Says a lot about you that you took it to a dirty place, Hawthorne," Gabi teases, her shoulder brushes against Jenna's as she makes the strongest eye contact Jenna has ever made with a person. Her face feels red hot as Gabi smiles at her, not moving away. The shoulder to shoulder contact makes Jenna's head spin. 

"I just mean you're sitting on what could generously be considered a bike seat that's attached to a broom handle, it's kind of weird right having to hold that between your legs, takes some getting used to."

"You could have said it like that, instead of making it sound as pervvy as possible."

"But then I wouldn't have gotten to see you blush when those delicate, old family sensibilities kicked in."

The wind kicks up and blows Gabi's hair back, filling the air with the soft floral scent of her perfume. It makes Jenna feel like she's miles above the ground. "I think you've been associating with too many Gryffindors."

"You're probably right about that, but they're not so bad when you get used to them. Dylan and his boys are always willing to make a booze run too."

"Aren't you supposed to be Head Girl?"

Gabi smiles and leans in even closer, her knee knocking against Jenna's. "Of Slytherin house, who am I to discipline some rowdy lions? Besides it's not like  _ I _ could bring it in. I'm Head Girl."

The air hangs as silent as the wind allows before Jenna laughs, just short of hysterics. It's hilarious, not that Gabi is sneaking booze in by tricking a few Gryffindors, that joke is worth a giggle at most. But Gabi is trusting her, Gabi who Jenna half suspected of being the person blackmailing her is letting her in on a secret that could get her removed as Head Girl -- could definitely get her a few weeks detention -- and she's telling Jenna like they're friends.

Jenna might be having a breakdown.

"I'll race you to the ground," Gabi says.

"I never learned how to really fly. I, uh, wrecked my broom a lot when it had those training wheel spells on and just never learned to-"

Gabi nodded like that made sense, like it was totally common to wreck a training broom so often you stubborned your way out of having to actually learn. "I hear you, and don't freak out, but you're already flying."

Jenna pulls her eyes away from Gabi and sees that she's moved all the way across the pitch and more than that she's a hundred feet up in the air. "What the fuck?"

"Guess you just needed something to take your mind off it. Race you to the ground?" Jenna is too shocked to be scared. She's flying, she's probably been flying this whole time, blindly following Gabi because it was easier.

Blindly following, blindly trusting is what got her into this mess in the first place. But for some reason with Gabi it felt different. Gabi was that stomach floating, weightless feeling of safe free fall.

Jenna is flying. 

She follows Gabi into a nosedive. 

Adrenaline and affection merge together into a bubbly sort of feeling. A cauldron just starting to boil, joy floods to the surface in rolling waves.

It makes what greets her when she comes back to her dorm that much worse. The dark, judgemental glare of that scarred owl douses the flame beneath her cauldron and it's ice. Talons are digging into the back of her desk chair and its squawk lacks all of the warmth Jenna has come to associate with the species.

Black eyes glare at her once more before flying away. Jenna flinches at the sudden movement, and the bird's cry sounds like laughter. There’s a red envelope waiting for her when the owl is gone, it must have waited to make sure she was the once who received it.

She wants to leave it there. Ignore Brooke, ignore the tournament, ignore magic and for once just be a teenage girl who wants to feel giddy that her crush talked to her. 

But that's not an option. She's a Hawthorne, after all. 

_When you're flying cast this._  
_stercores imbrem_   
_Swish and flick, pickle, even you should be able to manage that._

Flying is still terrifying.

Anxiety makes her stomach turn and she feels as green as her house. Competitive flying isn't the same as flying alone --- it's worlds away from flying with Gabi --- and the rules for competition mean it's different from quidditch flying. She doesn't have to worry about bludgers while she's flying, a small drop of relief in the bucket or her panic, but she does have three competitors who have all been given permission to spell her. 

At least no one will be able to tell that she's the one who casts that horrible spell.

Her feet kick off the ground and she thinks of Gabi, cast in the orangey-reds of sunset and distracting her until she forgets how much she hates this. She floats.

Somewhere, flitting and zipping above her, is a snitch charmed an emerald green with silver wings that she is supposed to catch. Was she even supposed to catch it? She had known it all along, but it was clearer now than ever that she was only even in the competition so she could cast this spell.

Whatever it was supposed to do it must be bad. She tried to find it in her books, a morbid curiosity to figure out just what Brooke was going to have her do. Her curiosity only extended as far as her book, when it wasn't there she stopped looking, afraid of just what she would find out. A mild stun spell flies across the field, just barely missing her and instead clipping Christa and sends her careening toward the stands.

The crowd is screaming. Their wild energy fills the arena, it's palpable, and only amps further when Christa almost includes them in the action.

Jenna can see Gabi, and Sam and Peter, sitting in the Slytherin section. Sam is cheering voraciously, his enthusiasm more than making up for Peter's quiet concentration, their joined hands both wave through the air but that's all Sam's doing. Gabi's eyes are bright, the silver paint underneath them reflected, she looks like something from a dream.

Her stomach rolls and revolts. She banks hard to the left and almost knocks DeMarcus off his broom. He curses and she's close enough to the Gryffindor stands that she can hear Lou calling foul, like there's some kind of difference between her almost hitting DeMarcus with her broom and her hitting him with a bat bogey. She could have been hurt too.

The thought makes her drop like a stone. A bolt shoots across where her head once was and hits the stands leaving a char behind. A gasp goes up and a crowd of Ravenclaws pushes closer together in the stands in a panicked instinct to get away. The cheers follow when they realize they're safe, calm intellect gone in the place of near bloodlust.

She shoots straight up, launching up past the competition by twenty feet.

Jenna had barely slept the night before, thinking of ways that she could confess. To find the way that she wouldn't have to do this.

She thought about telling Sam. Remembered how he had talked about solving who had charmed all of the walls in the transfiguration hallway so that they were covered in dicks. She hadn't really been paying attention to who had done it or why, Sam had launched into the story when she had asked how he had started dating Peter and then Gabi had walked into the common room in the softest looking sweater she had ever seen.

It was hardly anything more than a daydream. She didn't even know how she would start. The dream just picked up in the middle, "Well shit, Jenna, how'd you get yourself into this one?"

Peter was always there, "What are they holding over you?"

Straight to the point, but what would she say, what could she have said? Even in her daydreams she wasn't sure that she could tell. Would they understand or would they both judge her for being a coward, that this was the secret big enough that she would let herself be blackmailed over it.

Her indecision made Sam morph into Gabi, her presence steadying and unnerving all at once. Her smile had a cool Slytherin edge to it.

"Blackmail? I would think as an old family you'd be used to that, Eugenia." The nickname had an ice cold edge to it that made her skin crawl even thinking about it. She circles, serpentine, winding round and round until even in her dreams Jenna is having trouble breathing, “Any Slytherin worth their salt knows how to handle a blackmail scandal, but then there’s the  _ pickle _ …”

It’s a no win scenario.

That was the conclusion she had come to when she’d woken up sweaty and gasping in the blue-grey dawn; and it was the reality she was facing now in the too thin air, floating miles above the rest of her classmates.

_ Swish and flick, pickle, even you should be able to manage that. _

A lot happens at once.

She can hear the match going on beneath her. Hear the shouts and the cheers as spells are being cast and the competitors hunt blindly for their snitch. Jenna takes a breath to steele herself.

What choice does she have?

Inhale, a hush seems to fall on the stadium. She balances, shaky, transitioning to one extended arm on her broom so the other can draw her wand. She raises her wand, making a point to face away from the Slytherin stands. Swish and flick, she whispers the spell on her exhale so soft that it gets carried away on the wind before she can even hear it. The crowd explodes in excitement, she can hear someone announce that DeMarcus has found the Gryffindor snitch. Jenna hopes the spell doesn’t take, that she was too quiet. No such luck.

Even she was able to manage it, and like the magic was waiting for someone to achieve victory on this task, the spell takes hold. Cheers quickly become screams as the spell does what it was designed to.

Jenna stays for a second. Perched in the sky, perched above it all. Abject and away from the crowd. Wishing, just for a second, that she hadn’t learned to fly. Wishing more than that, that she didn’t have magic at all.

* * *

“What the hell was that, Hawthorne?”

She had managed to touchdown among the chaos of students retching and fleeing, flying somehow less scary amid the self-hatred. She thought it had been unseen, but Sam’s not so quiet outrage proves her wrong.

It’s easier not to turn for this part, “What the hell was what?” The lie tastes rancid on her tongue, but she can turn now to look him, and a silently observing Peter, in the eye.

“We saw what you cast. What the fuck, how could you?” Sam’s accusation feels like a slap. It leaves her face feeling hot and her chest achy.

“What’s going on, Jenna?” Peter’s voice is soft, prodding. Let me help you, it says.

But it’s the sight of Gabi behind them. Far enough back that she’s not immediately visible, close enough that there’s no question that she’s listening. Gabi’s expression is guarded, a carefully shielded mask that makes it almost impossible for Jenna to tell what she’s thinking. Is she hurt? Is she glad that this is happening? Was that the goal, to make Jenna even more of a social reject than before? Is she waiting to see if Jenna will reveal all? Waiting to strike, to put that final nail in Jenna’s coffin, because who would believe Jenna over Gabi Granger? Jenna didn’t think she would even. It’s the tilt of the head that does it, when they lock eyes, that slight acknowledgment that yes, she did know that Jenna was looking now; so carefully done, so artful, so Slytherin.

“I’m sorry, I can’t do this right now.” 

She wishes she were high, at least then everything wouldn’t feel so much.

* * *

She had come to dread the sight of that scarred, black owl before the tournament had started. Contact with Brooke had become tainted, poisoned. Now Jenna thought she would give anything to hear from the woman she thought she had known.

If you seem desperate, her mother had once told her, then people will know that they have something you want. Jenna felt desperate, felt ragged as she went to the owlry and sent as many owls as she thought she could get away with, trying to get an answer from Brooke.

_ I’ve done what you asked _

_ I don’t understand why you’re doing this to us _

_ I don’t want to hear from you again, leave me alone _

Jenna gets what she asked for, but she’s not sure it’s actually what she wanted.

It seems ironic, with as much as she’s done to keep together her perfect facade that now that she has done what Brooke has asked of her Jenna doesn’t see the point in pretending any longer. Never the best student, Jenna throws herself into her school work with an abandon that feels manic. Hiding in the library and giving up any attempts at maintaining those ties she had with the girls that she lived with. It's obvious almost as much as the rumors that have started going around about her. Whispers that file get down the halls, “I hear they're bankrupt, I hear that she's  _ actually  _ going to have to get a job when she graduates.”

It's not true, but she doesn't have the energy to refute it, or any of the other rumors she hears.

“A felix felicis problem, I heard, can't afford it now.”

“I heard it was actually cocaine, she's been disinherited cause it's such a muggle thing.”

Sam has barely looked at her since their confrontation on the quidditch pitch. There's been no word on whether or not he's weighing in on the rumors, or if he's said anything about her spell. That's pretty much the only thing Sam isn't weighing in on. He and Peter flit around the Great Hall, and the rest of campus, like hummingbirds moving between flowers. 

It's not hard to figure out why.

With every spell, every attack there had been a commotion in the Great Hall after. The Turd Burglar, it's unimaginative and unmagical but it is descriptive.

“The vandal guys are looking into all the turd burgle shit.” You can hardly walk down the halls without hearing about it.

Gabi didn't seem to be involved in this investigation, unlike the dicks that had been charmed to the walls. Jenna had watched, a little jealous that someone else was being included in the investigation alongside the dynamic duo, as Gabi helped them make their way around the secret paths and locked doors of the castle. Perhaps her duty as head girl excludes her from being involved this time.

Tensions are high when everyone comes together for dinner. Sharp whispers as people guess at who could be responsible, the people who had spoken with Peter and Sam became celebrities at their tables, the ones who’ve been stopped more than once are watched with a particularly feral energy.

Almost like Gabi wants to make up for Sam, Jenna can feel Gabi's eyes on her all the time. It makes her claustrophobic. A weighted gaze so constant it leaves a residue, even when she's in her room at night Jenna feels like someone is watching her. 

She thinks she might even like that feeling. the way it leaves a rolling unease in her stomach, one part anxious, one part wistful. It's the same feeling she got when looking back at her letters from Brooke.

It's that feeling that makes her wonder again if Brooke and Gabi are linked. it's a wonder that didn't last long.

Jenna Hawthorne is not a Ravenclaw.

But she does notice some things. Like the way her letters that had once smelled like the floral sweetness of Gabi's perfume and worn paper had decayed. Leaving the box she kept them in smelling of the sickly, too sweet smell of flowers left to rot which doesn't quite cover the second smell of pages left to mildew. 

Jenna may not have been devoted to her studies, but she knows how to connect easy dots. She realizes she may have made a mistake.

“Did you hear Sam Ecklund asked a professor if they ate shit?”

“I know! I mean, I know he's in our house but like how Gryffindor…”

Definitely made a mistake.

“I didn't set out to do this,” she tells them, “this isn’t something I wanted.”

"Just tell us what happened," Peter prompted.

She held her box of letters clutched tight in her lap, safety blanket and safety net, regret pulsed hot while she perched on a stool in an empty classroom. Even knowing this was the right thing to do she hated that she had to. Just like she hated having to walk up to Sam in the too crowded space of the Great Hall, it felt like begging to ask him for an interview.

Still somehow she couldn’t make herself look at Peter, too earnest and too Hufflepuff, and Sam was her only alternative.

So she takes the steel in his eyes and tries to weld it to her backbone. She sighs.

“It’s hard here. I don’t mean that in a woe is me sort of way, I know some of this I’ve done to myself, but it’s- it’s still hard. I met Brooke in Hogsmeade one weekend, I was by myself, like usual, she said she liked my vibe. It’s like so low tech here, but I’ve seen like Friends I know what that means. I mean it’s not like she could hit me up on instagram or anything, but I like your vibe is, like, the same as like sending a hey with more than one Y or liking a bunch of posts on instagram in a row.

Rambling, that’s all she’s doing but even mentioning Brooke makes her feel vulnerable in a way she hates. Raw and exposed, with every word it's like she’s stripping a layer away from herself.

“What happened when you met Brooke?” Peter asks, his voice is soft and even.

“Nothing.”

“Jenna,” Sam’s softness is different, doesn’t grate against her exposed layers the way Peter’s did.

“I loved her. I told her- I told her that. I’ve never- I’ve never-”

“Tell us what happened, Jenna,” Sam prompts.

“I loved her, I told her-” panic felt like a many legged creature, it’s spiked legs crawling painfully one step at a time up her throat, “She said it back. Who the fuck can say that and then- We wrote letters, it seemed so romantic I kept them all like it would be something to show our kids one day. I thought I loved her, I told her things I’ve never told anyone!”

“What happened then?” Peter asks.

“You know what happened,” Jenna snapped, she held the box in her lap so tight she worried the lid might rip.

“Tell me about the letters,” Sam asks.

“It was easier, we probably only met in person like twice, but I wrote her everyday, sometimes more than once a day. It was a little like a diary, I guess, but if your diary wrote back to say how much it supported you. But then she started pushing. I know I should have said something I know but I loved her and she said she loved me and I didnt know who I could trust. I didn't, that sounds shitty but the letters they sm- I just didn't know who was on my side.

"Can we see the letters Jenna."

Peter Maldonado is a Hufflepuff.

He was soft. He was kind. He had a vicious streak that could catch you by surprise.

Jenna thought they might be friends, but she doubted that would last when he saw what her secret was that had driven her to cast that spell. He wouldn't know right away, she only has Brooke's letters, but eventually she would share. Of course she would, that's why she had come to them in the first place. That doesn't stop her fears that this is one more thing she's going to ruin.

But she hands him the box anyway. Her fingers twisting themselves together in knots know that they didn't have anything to cling to. It's barely in his hands before that sickly rotten scent fills the room they’re in, Peter rushing forward --- what Sam said, almost a gryffindor --- anything else Jenna might have said dies in her throat as she chokes on the smell.

So she watches instead. Sam looks like he's been slapped, but his shock barely touches the confusion that has furrowed Peter's face.

"Why do they smell like shitty cinnamon candy and like something’s been burned?" It's the first question Peter has asked that hasn't seemed fully prepared. He's not even looking at her when he asks it, his eyes have been locked on Sam's since the smell filled the room.

She tries to let herself relax, but it feels like her muscles only wind tighter as she watches Sam. Watches something light bright behind his eyes, like he's filled in enough of a puzzle to see the picture --- almost a ravenclaw, she remembers.

"What do you smell?" There's no question that this is being directed at her.

"Rotting flowers."

"What did you smell, before the magic went bad?"

"Worn books."

"And?"

She could lie. If she were smart she would lie. If she had an ounce of the Slytherin cunning she would have lied to Brooke and she would lie now to Sam.

But she's so tired of pretending.

"Gabi's perfume."

Peter's confusion slowly melds into understanding as he watches Sam. Jenna spares a moment to wonder if he's a Legilimens, but that probably didn't give Peter's mystery solving ability enough credit.

"What did you tell Brooke, Jenna?" Peter asks.

"You'll hate me."

"Impossible," Sam assures.

"You will.  _ She  _ will.  _ I _ do."

"What did you tell her, Jenna?"

Jenna suspects, has suspected, that Brooke Wheeler is not what she says she is. Jenna suspects that she is not the only one being blackmailed, possibly one of many.

"She never wanted to be seen with me, not really. We met up in real life like twice, and it was always in the darkest grossest corner where there was less than a zero chance of someone seeing. I just figured she didn't want anyone to know she was dating me, don't blame her.

"I tried asking her if we could hang out longer once, turned around like Orpheus or something and she looked wrong like her whole face had changed."

"What did you tell her?"

"What didn't I? I told her I was lonely. I told her how much I hated it here. I told her I loved her. I told her things I hated about myself and that I thought would make everyone else hate me.”

“Jenna.”

“I told her what house I was almost sorted in, that’s when she started to act differently.”

Peter still looks confused, like the connection he was waiting for hadn’t come. Jenna can only imagine how ridiculous the whole thing must seem to him, the broken housing system. Sam only cocks his head like it does make more sense to him, she knows his mom is a witch and wonders how old her family is.

“Why-” Peter starts.

“I think you should talk to Gabi.”

They both turn to look at Sam, neither one of them doing that good a job of hiding their confusion.

She's not a Gryffindor, she's a Hawthorne, Jenna knows how to make her exits gracefully.

* * *

Gabi’s as easy to find as ever. Tactfully out of the way in the common area, watching the comings and goings of the house but also keeping a close watch on Jenna.

She doesn't seem surprised when Jenna sits beside her, there's no telling how much of that I'd Sam's doing.

"Heard you got caught in the thick of it, Hawthorne."

"What’d Sam tell you?"

Gabi hums, considering her answer, "Peter actually, kid might just be the patron saint of dumbasses."

A face starts to appear in the wood whirls of the table, Jenna thinks that might be Mary nestled in the cup of her folded hands.

"That sad face is fucking lethal, I'll count myself among his patrons, fuck knows he helped out last time Sam and I were fighting. Although his dumbass was part of the reason we were fighting."

"What did he tell you?" Her voice comes out whisper quiet, it's a question she almost prefers not to have the answer to.

"That you meet all the qualifications to join me and Sam's exclusive gays who probably won't pass potions club."

"Gabi," her throat feels tight with the emotion she's holding back, it almost hurts to croak out her name.

"That you got dicked around by someone who took advantage of the fact that you wanted to believe they were someone better than they actually were. Which, believe it or not, I have a little bit of experience with, not that cheating ex-boyfriends really hit the same as gaslighting girlfriends.

"Seriously, Jenna, no one is going to blame you for acting the way you did. Shit, old blood families are fucking culty about sorting, obviously you wouldn’t want to say anything."

"That's why they're talking about expelling whoever did this, because they understand."

"Expulsion is just a bunch of teachers' way of hiding the fact that they're scared some teenagers can come up with spells they don't know."

“Did Peter tell you that too?” Gabi’s eyeliner is applied in soft smudged lines across her lids, it’s as close as Jenna can come to eye contact. 

“No, I used some common sense; there’s been one expulsion in the last five years. Will you tell me what’s going on?”

“I wanted it to be you, so badly. All her letters smelled like your perfume, did Peter tell you that? Ammortia, I guess. I don’t know if I wanted it to be some prank or a Cyrano thing, but I imagined sometimes it was you writing. Even when she was threatening me, I thought maybe it was a punishment for wanting someone who wasn’t my girlfriend.”

A group of first years run past, giggling excitedly as they each cast a charm that sends colorful sparks flying through the air. Gabi watches them cross with a soft, nostalgic look on her face that doesn’t make the silence any easier even as Jenna’s traitor heart fills with something like yearning while she looks at her.

Gabi gets up when they pass, like their excitement has reminded her that she has somewhere else to be. She pauses to lean against the corner of the table, her presence at the very edge of Jenna’s personal space almost a physical sensation. “I don’t blame you for not coming to one of us, I won’t say that I get it but we’ve all got our shit. I’m gonna say something that’s going to sound pretentious, but hear me out. I’m not going to pull some, if you can’t love yourself how are you going to love anyone else shit on you. It’s a lot easier to love other people but it’s a lot easier to believe those other people like you if you like yourself.”

The staccato rhythm of Jenna’s nervous tapping was off tempo with Gabi’s speech. It made her feel anxious in a way she couldn’t describe. She stopped and managed to force herself to look up at Gabi now, if only for something else to do.

Like she was waiting for it, Gabi’s gaze softened. “If I’m being honest, and don’t get mad, sometimes I think you’re so worried about being the person you think Jenna  _ Hawthorne _ is supposed to be that you don’t even know who  _ just  _ Jenna is. I think you should take some time to figure that out.”

“Just Jenna?”

“Yeah,” Gabi’s smile was soft, she looked almost embarrassed though Jenna was helpless to figure out why. “I’ve seen her around a couple times, I would have liked to spend a little more time with her.”

“I don’t think-” Jenna started to say, her words froze in her throat when Gabi’s hand suddenly reached up from where it was bracing her weight on the edge of the table and moved to brush through Jenna’s hair.

“You can, take some time and figure yourself out, Eugenia. I’m looking forward to meeting Just Jenna.” Gabi leans forward then, not waiting for Jenna to finish processing what she’s saying, and drops a soft kiss on her forehead. “Good luck.”

For the first time in months Jenna thinks she might mean it when she smiles.

* * *

The howlers come the next day.

An owlery’s worth of birds fly through the Great Hall, dropping dark red envelopes as they pass. Despite their weighty look, they seem to fall slower to the table. Hanging long enough to block out the charmed sky of the room.

Red sky at morning, students take warning.

Their confusion lasts only as long as it takes for the first to burst open. Shrieking in DeMarcus’ voice, “I can’t trust Lou, I know he’s going to recruiters behind my back.”

Hell breaks loose as letters begin to burst open and scream out secrets. Students torn between listening at what gossip is being shared and casting incineration charms to keep whatever might be held inside from getting revealed.

Mortification spreads like a wave across the student population. Dread fills the pit of Jenna’s stomach.

She can’t help but look for Sam or Peter, too afraid to try to find Gabi on the chance that they would lock eyes as her own voice filled the room. She can’t find any of them. Her wand sits on the table in front of her, but she doesn’t reach for it.

“Jenna!” Sam grabs her arm, eyes wide as he watches the chaos, “I’m sorry.”

His apology makes no sense, drowned out by her own voice shouting her own secret.

It’s a relief, to her surprise, now that it’s finally out there. She smiles, “Sorry for what?”

* * *

Jenna makes it through her last year and a half of school with her head held high even after what the school has colorfully started calling the screaming dump.

(Her head is high but her nose is not in the air. She’s just Jenna, not the Hawthorne heir, and Sam and Peter don’t let her put on airs the way she once had.)

She graduates, passing potions by the skin of her teeth, and leaves school for the last time feeling cautiously hopeful about what's to come.

(She returns to Hawthorne Manor long enough to pack up her things. Her parents love her, she's pretty sure, but things have been strained since her name spent those weeks in the gossip columns. Gabi was right, they did seem to care more about where she was sorted than the fact that she was gay. She goes home to say goodbye to the place she grew up, the person she had been, and the person she might have become. She also says goodbye to the ghost, the raven priestess seems the saddest to see Jenna go.)

She's never had to worry about being anything but an heir, but she's slowly figuring out what Just Jenna wants to do with her life. 

(She still doesn’t have to do anything, she hates that a little bit, that her parents still send her an allowance so they don’t look like they abandoned their mishoused daughter. But it lets her do what she wants to do, and it means she can afford a studio in the muggle part of San Francisco without a roommate. After seven years, it’s nice not having to be on edge about what she says or does when she’s in her own space.)

The library, muggle this time not magic, becomes a new refuge. Jenna has always wanted to be a people person, and now she finds herself seeking people out. She joins a queer book club she finds people talking about on twitter. She volunteers so much she ends up getting offered a job.

(She likes the library, likes helping. Here all she can be is Jenna, surrounded by muggles who know nothing of the Hawthorne family. She isn’t an heir, she’s just an employee. She likes it, likes learning about people for no other reason but helping them. Jenna sees people like her, confused and uncertain, trying to figure out why they don’t fit where they’ve been told they’re supposed to. She’s getting pretty good at finding what people are looking for.)

Jenna is still figuring out what it’s like to have friends. How camaraderie differs from the backhanded manipulation she was taught. She’s learning what it’s like to have someone who’s more than a friend. What love and affection look like when not tinged by expectation or revenge.

(It’s Sam who talks her into moving, pulls out all his Slytherin charm to get Jenna to tag along with them. She likes California, likes having her own place, likes that it’s close enough to Berkeley that Gabi comes to visit on the weekends. Jenna is taking things slow with Gabi, they’re both learning how to cope with the fallout of what Not-Brooke did to her. The once stray cat that now calls Jenna’s studio home, the one thing they’ve rushed into. Sam picks on them for a week for being so stereotypical, but always brings something for Hare when he comes over, Jenna knows that’s just his way of showing affection. When Jenna can talk him and Peter into apparating out of LA the four of them double.)

Jenna Hawthorne was a Slytherin who should have been a Hufflepuff.

A child who longed for friendship her whole life, she’s finally learning what it means to be something other than a name.

Jenna was a Hawthorne, but she is slowly becoming something else entirely.

**Author's Note:**

> you can follow me on tumblr @formosusiniquis


End file.
